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Life, Interrupted: Hurricanes and Cancer

By Suleika Jaouad November 1, 2012 11:04 amNovember 1, 2012 11:04 am

Photo

Credit Seamus McKiernan

As Hurricane Sandy prepared to make landfall on Monday, my boyfriend, Seamus, was making a checklist: Do we have candles, flashlights? Could a tree fall through our window? Have we stocked up on enough water and food? Are our loved ones safe?

Suleika Jaouad writes about the challenges faced by young adults and her experiences with cancer.

I was in the other room, with a knot in my stomach. But it didn’t have anything to do with the impending storm. My monthly round of chemotherapy was scheduled to begin that day. Just the thought of an approaching chemotherapy treatment was sending my body into a spin.

For cancer patients like me, and for others who suffer from chronic or life-threatening illnesses, natural disasters don’t put health on the back burner. In fact, disasters like this one only add another layer of concern. Hurricane Sandy coincided with my ongoing cancer emergency, which I’ve been navigating since my diagnosis with leukemia almost two years ago. You can’t ever fully prepare for Mother Nature. But while you can gather a first-aid kit, canned goods and extra batteries, you can’t stockpile chemotherapy drugs, antibiotics or emergency medical advice in the same way. For people in need of medical assistance, natural disasters can be a double-dip crisis: a public safety emergency on top of the unique challenges of one’s own disease.

My home, like those of countless East Coast residents this week, was in an evacuation zone. Electricity, cellphone service, hot water and transportation were no longer available. For me, as a cancer patient, it also means that it is challenging to get ahold of a doctor, find my way to a hospital or get emergency medicine if I need it. Sewage mixed with the storm water flowing in the streets, and I was worried about the risk of infection.

Part of the difficulty of these twin crises — a natural disaster and an ongoing medical emergency — is that while I wanted to stay a safe distance from the danger zones, I also had to be within a safe proximity to the hospital. On Monday and Tuesday, the streets were empty and the subways closed. With the hospital four miles from my apartment, and differing reports about when the hurricane would land, I decided to play it safe and delay the start of my chemotherapy.

Many New Yorkers with health conditions were in a similar predicament. Some were cancer patients whom I know. I received a Twitter message from Annie, a 31-year-old woman with breast cancer: “No radiation for me until further notice. NYU Langone Cancer Center has no power, and they’ve told me not to come in until they contact me.”

Annie still hasn’t been able to get in touch with any of her doctors, and has received no information about rescheduling her radiation treatments. Meanwhile, like every other New Yorker, she’s dealing with the transit shutdowns and power failures in Sandy’s wake.

“I’m anxiously awaiting to hear news from both Con Ed and my oncologists,” she told me.

She tried calling other hospitals to see if they could administer her treatments, but so far she’s had no success.

“I understand this is an emergency and that there are other people who more urgently need to see doctors,” said Annie. “But I can’t help but feel anxious that I don’t know when I’ll be able to receive treatment.”

I was lucky to be able to make arrangements to stay with friends who live near the hospital where I get my treatment and to begin my chemotherapy cycle just two days late, a delay that won’t do any lasting harm to my health or my treatment plan. But the hospital felt like a ghost town. As I walked down the hallway to the infusion suite at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the waiting rooms, usually crowded with patients and their caregivers, were almost empty. As a nurse checked my vital signs, she told me that she hadn’t been able to reach many of the other patients. Some were not picking up their phones. Others called to say there was no way they could make it into Manhattan.

As I near Day 3 of my five-day cycle of chemotherapy, the nausea and fatigue from the chemo is starting to catch up with me. But I feel lucky to have access to a hot shower and a bed – all within walking distance of the hospital. Mother Nature wreaks havoc in all sorts of ways. And today I’m thinking about fellow cancer patients and other people with critical medical needs for whom this storm is an added challenge.

Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-LAKE-uh ja-WAD) is a 24-year-old writer who lives in New York City. Her column, “Life, Interrupted,” chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer, appears regularly on Well. Follow @suleikajaouad on Twitter.

A version of this article appears in print on 11/06/2012, on page D4 of the NewYork edition with the headline: One More Source of Stress For Those in Medical Crisis.